Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Our new sleep pattern...

Usually M sleeps really well. She has not always been a good sleeper but I feel pretty lucky that we have been able to get her down and stay asleep pretty well for the last year and change.

Here is our usual sleep pattern:

8:00- We tell M it is time to go "ni-night". We pick her up. We give hugs and kisses good night. We lay her down, shut the door, and she goes to sleep. She wakes up around 7:30-8:00am.

Our new sleep pattern:

8:00- We tell M it is time to go night night. She screams "no" and runs away from us. We pick her up and tell her to give kisses. She screams "no" and struggles to get free of our arms. We put her in her cribs and she continues to scream. We shut the door.

8:10- M is still screaming. To the point where she can hardly breathe. Either Josh or I go in to the room and pick her up to try and calm her down. She points to the door and tells us she wants to go "out". We just rock her and eventually she lays her head on our shoulder. We put her back down. She starts to cry.

8:20- Her little cry has turned into a scream again and now she is snotting all over the place and again struggling to breathe. One of us goes in and tries to calm her down. Usually the second time around is more successful. She cries when we lay her in the crib. We rub her hair and she falls asleep.

8:30- She is finally asleep. She sleeps until about 7:00, if not earlier.

So what do I do? She is very calm in our arms after a few seconds. She obviously wants to leave the room and play but we stay in the room and hold her and she is fine. The minute we put her down she is not happy. Is this normal? How do I break her of the screaming until she gets what she wants habit?

9 comments:

The hardest part with all kids, teaching them that screaming will not cause you to give them what you want. I think you can still go in and check on M but probably best not to pick her up (which is what she wants). I forget which method it is, but one of them say that you should spread the time out each night/week when you check on her (5 min., 10 min., 15 min., etc...). In our experience back when Ahnica did the same thing, she would almost get more upset after we went in and picked her up to calm her down and then laid her down. No matter how long we waited and even swore that she was practically asleep, she would immediately start screaming. Waiting it out is the only thing that worked, probably lasted about a week, but oh was it hard on mommy to hear her screaming so hard. :o(

Oh, little beautiful M!!! Yeah, I'm afraid our children's phases and changes are, undoubtedly, one of God's means of sanctifying us. Gwen's done a couple of these phases. You know what, she was so convincing that we would let her out a lot...then we got a little smarter and realized we just needed to be strong. Giving her 10 minute/5minute, etc. warnings for approaching lights-out has definitely helped us. My best answer...do what YOU think is best for her and just ride it out...she'll totally get past it...especially when she realizes that YOU have a plan and you're not afraid to implement it. You are doing great! Doesn't the screaming and crying totally sound like murdered in their room?? I mean, COME ON!

First off, you're still rather lucky to have her sleep until 7:00. We're woken up at 4:45-5:00. We also go in and calm him down if he fusses, but we put him down before he falls asleep. We struggled with this (as I'm sure you've read on my blog) for some time. Sometimes they go through new phases of learning and don't want to go to sleep, but like Sarah said, just be consistent. E has gotten into a new rut lately, so I understand.

Thanks everyone. She actually went down tonight with no screaming. But I got her from my grandma's late and so it was about 8:45 when we got home. I am thinking that maybe she isn;t very tired yet at 8:00. So I might try moving up her nap from 1:00 to 12:00. Maybe that will help...

You are not alone, we are kind of having the same problem with Lincoln...he's fine and then as soon as we walk out he screams and screams and screams. We, too, go in there and console him and lay him back down---to be honest I think it may have something to do with getting rid of the binkie. At first he was fine, but I think he now knows he used to have something to soothe him and fall asleep, now he doesn't have it so I think it may be harder and he's realizing that. Not being tired makes it harder for bedtime too and we've adjusted their bedtime as well.

We had already moved Dec to a big kid bed by this age, which you would think would make it worse since he could just get up and open the door himself. But we paired it with the "silent return" technique. We started at 18 months and it took about a month to get from 2 hour long bedtime routine to saying goodnight and him going to sleep on his own. Now he is a champion. We're in the midst of doing the same with Cal, although he is still nursing to sleep so that part at least is easy.